Community Archives - Green Path

Anderson Park Botanical Gardens and Conservatory

Anderson Park is the largest of the three botanical gardens managed by Townsville City Council. We have been conveniently close to it in Mundingburra for so long that we take it for granted but a couple of recent visits reminded us how pleasant it is; reminded us, too, of the Conservatory and the exotic fruit garden.

Bismarkia and other palms in Anderson Park — Bismarkia and other palms

The Conservatory

The council doesn’t publicise the Conservatory very well (it doesn’t even rate any text on the park brochure, for instance, although it is marked as a little grey square on the map) and only opens it to the public on Tuesdays but it’s worth a look.

view of conservatory — Anderson Park Conservatory

It’s full of gingers, ferns, cycads, bromeliads and other families. Many of them feature in our own gardens, of course, but most of us don’t have so many varieties, or get them growing so well. The two which caught my eye last Tuesday were the ornamental banana and the pitcher plants.

ornamental banana pink flower and fruit — Yellow flowers and pink bracts above the bunch of developing fruit

The hanging jugs which give the pitcher plants their name

Tropical Fruit Orchard

The Tropical Fruit Orchard is right next to the Conservatory. We didn’t spend as much time there as we would have on a cooler day but noted both Black and Yellow Sapote fruiting abundantly and dropping ripe fruit on the ground, while a Pomelo and a patch of (edible) bananas were also quite productive. Stern notices forbid the collection of any fruit from the orchard; one can see the point, although the waste of good fruit is disappointing.

Ethical investing – using our money for good

Ethical investing is currently in our news because of a court case brought against a large superannuation fund, REST Super, by one of its members for failing to adequately consider financial risks arising from climate change.

Also, as it happens, a member of one of the more civilised online forums asked very recently about ethical investing and received some good answers. That synchronicity encouraged me to turn the forum posts into something more readable for Green Path by combining and rewriting the replies of several members; that means it is not all my own work although it appears under my name as usual.

Continue reading “Ethical investing – using our money for good”

School Strike for Climate – Townsville

The School Strike movement – SS4C – is a remarkable phenomenon, having grown from one lone teenager’s action 15 months ago to a global action which brought millions onto the streets and parks of major cities and small towns alike on Friday 20th September. Media coverage has been good enough that I don’t feel I need to say more about that here.

We attended the Townsville rally, at Strand Park. I haven’t seen official figures but my estimate was around 500 people, which is encouraging for a community of 200 000 even though it can’t compare with the thousands in Melbourne and Sydney.

School Strike 4 Climate Townsville — The crowd at Strand Park

I was struck by how happy, peaceful and positive the whole event was, and by how inclusive. Continue reading “School Strike for Climate – Townsville”

Townsville’s 2019 floods – consequences in daily life

This post extends my April post, Townsville’s 2019 floods, by mentioning some consequences, both temporary and ongoing, of the flood damage.

Accelerated decisions

Old people flooded out of their homes may not return but find retirement accommodation, a move they may have been resisting for years.
All sorts of people will be replacing furniture they were already planning to replace because it was looking shabby.

Cancellations

Both of the main performing arts spaces, Civic Theatre and Riverway, were flood damaged and had to be closed for repairs, forcing the cancellation of events scheduled well into the middle of the year. Civic Theatre, I know, is re-opening for the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in July – but then re-closing to finish repairs.
Sports grounds were also flood damaged, forcing the cancellation of events up to national-festival level.
The Alice River bridge on Hervey’s Range Road was severely damaged and needs to be rebuilt. Rumour (which is all I have) has it that the road won’t re-open until late this year. Until it does, Hervey’s Range residents can only get into town via Black River Road and the Highway, an extra 10 Km each way.

Continue reading “Townsville’s 2019 floods – consequences in daily life”

Townsville’s 2019 floods

The Townsville flood of January-February 2019 was, like cyclones Althea and Yasi, one of the extreme weather events which define people’s lives in the city. Two months later, “How did you go in the floods?” is still the first question we ask friends we haven’t seen for a while. There’s a lot for Green Path to say about it but whatever we publish now will be incomplete so we will update and extend it as appropriate, in separate posts if justified by the amount of extra material.

Let’s begin with an overview of the weather event and its immediate consequences.

The weather event

A low in the monsoon trough over the Gulf became a rain depression and drifted South and East until it settled over Townsville, where it stayed much longer than “normal” (we will have to return to that concept later) and dumped an inordinate amount of rain on us over about ten days – say 29-30 Jan to 7-8 Feb. Continue reading “Townsville’s 2019 floods”